TheDailyBeast: World Leader Mugshots

Vladimir Lenin

After his older brother Alexander was arrested in 1887 and executed for attempting to overthrow the Russian tsar, Vladmir Lenin became inspired to become a Marxist revolutionary. A few months later, he was arrested for his part in a student riot and expelled from university. Thirty years after that, in October 1917, Lenin completed his brother’s work, overturning the tsar in the Russian Revolution and becoming the head of the Bolshevik party.

On July 26, 1953, 26-year-old Fidel Castro led an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the country’s dictator, Fulgencio Batista. The rebels were heavily outnumbered in the failed assault, but Castro escaped and hid in the countryside until he was finally arrested on Aug. 1. At the subsequent trial, Castro spoke in his own defense—declaring “history will absolve me”—but he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Believing the rebels were no longer a threat, the newly reelected Batista granted Castro and others in the movement amnesty and released them in 1955. Four years later, Cuba had a new jefe.

Decades before he became supreme leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin was a Bolshevik revolutionary who was arrested many times and sentenced to Siberia—but he repeatedly escaped. During one period of exile, however, he made an important life decision and changed his surname—Dzhugashvili—to Stalin, which means “man of steel.” It’s also excellent propaganda.

In 1989, after six years as the military dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega was overthrown by a U.S.-led invasion of his country. Noriega fled, but eventually surrendered after a manhunt and was flown to Miami, where he stood trial. The former Panamanian strongman was convicted in 1992 of several counts of money laundering, racketeering, and drug trafficking and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, which was later reduced to 30.

In October 2000, a little more than two years after assuming the Philippine presidency, Joseph “Erap” Estrada was accused of receiving payoffs and of other corruption charges. During the January 2001 impeachment trial of the sitting president, as the country faced a political uprising from the people, the Philippine armed forces withdrew their support for Estrada and backed his vice president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The Supreme Court of the Philippines soon declared Arroyo the new president, and in April 2001, Estrada was arrested and charged with perjury and plunder. After a six-year trial, he was convicted of plunder and sentenced to life in prison, though several months later President Arroyo pardoned him.

In order to escape military service in 1902, 19-year-old Benito Mussolini fled Italy and went to Switzerland. Unable to find work, he became active in the socialist movement and was arrested in 1903 for advocating violence during a strike. He was deported from the country and returned to Italy, only to be arrested the next year in Switzerland for falsifying his papers. Mussolini eventually returned to Italy, where he served in its Army and later became the head of the country’s Fascist Party until his execution in 1945.

Though he eventually shared the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize as the prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin was born in Russia and studied law in Warsaw. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Begin escaped to Lithuania, but when the Soviet Union invaded Lithuania, he was among the 120,000 citizens arrested and deported to Siberia. Released in 1941, Begin went on to become a Zionist leader and founded Israel’s Likud party. In 1977, he became the nation’s sixth prime minister, brokering a historic peace treaty with Egypt.

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein fled Baghdad and was eventually hunted down by the military. Having been captured in a “spider hole” in December 2003, he was taken prisoner, where he was photographed to establish his identity. During a November 2006 trial, Saddam was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed the following month.

After his older brother Alexander was arrested in 1887 and executed for attempting to overthrow the Russian tsar, Vladmir Lenin became inspired to become a Marxist revolutionary. A few months later, he was arrested for his part in a student riot and expelled from university. Thirty years after that, in October 1917, Lenin completed his brother’s work, overturning the tsar in the Russian Revolution and becoming the head of the Bolshevik party.